3446 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Postcrossing Meetup, Saint Petersburg, 19 February 2020

This postcard was made on the occasion of the postcrossing meeting that took place on February 19, 2020 in Saint Petersburg. The organizers chose as image the Water Supply Tower, one of the oldest constructions on the SPbPU (Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University), built in 1905, three years after the opening of Polytechnic Institute. Its bizarre architectural look with fragmented forms and lines clearly contrasts with the other buildings on the campus; it is a kind of a hi-rise dominant of the entire complex of the two- and four-storey buildings.

0570, 0571, 2913 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Saint Isaac's Square - part of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

0570 Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg

Posted on 23.03.2013, 21.12.2016
The Saint Isaac's Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great, who had been born on the feast day of that saint, is the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in Saint Petersburg. Ordered by Tsar Alexander I and build between 1818 and 1858, it's the fourth consecutive church standing at this place. Although the project of French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand was criticised for the dry and allegedly boring rhythm, the emperor, who favoured the ponderous Empire style of architecture, insisted to be elected.

0570 Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg by night
seen from the roof of the Winter Palace

The neoclassical exterior, plated with gray and pink stone, expresses the traditional Russian-Byzantine formula of a Greek-cross ground plan with a large central dome and four subsidiary domes. It features a total of 112 red granite columns with Corinthian capitals. The rotunda is encircled by a walkway accessible to tourists. 24 statues stand on the roof, and another 24 on top of the rotunda. The cathedral's main dome is plated with pure gold, and is decorated with twelve statues of angels by Josef Hermann.

2913 Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg
at the beginning of the 20th century

In 1931, the building was turned into the Antireligious Museum, and in 1937 became the museum of the Cathedral. With the fall of communism, regular worship activity has resumed in the cathedral. The Cathedral separates Saint Isaac's Square and Senate Square. The photo from the postcard 0570 was taken from Saint Isaac's Square. On the left can be seen the Monument to Nicholas I, unveiled in 1859 (the first equestrian statue in Europe with only two support points), and on the right the Hotel Astoria (the red brick building), designed by Fyodor Lidval (one of the most luxurious hotels in the Russian Empire).

Saint Isaac's Square is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments, about which I wrote here.  

2739 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Bank Bridge

2739 T. Yumadilov - Griffins of the Bank Bridge

Bank Bridge is a 25m-long pedestrian bridge crossing the Griboedov Canal near the former Assignation Bank in Saint Petersburg. Like other bridges across the canal, the existing structure dates from 1826. The bridge engineer was Wilhelm von Traitteur, and the general management of the construction was carried out by colonel E. A. Adam. The special popularity of the bridge was gained through angular sculptures of four winged lions (griffins) crowning the abutments, designed by sculptor Pavel Sokolov (1764-1835), who also contributed lions for Bridge of Lions and sphinxes for Egyptian Bridge.

RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg / Leningrad Oblast) - Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

According to European criteria, Saint Petersburg, the most western city of Russia, is a young city, in 2003 celebrating "only" 300 years since Peter the Great built it from nothing into a region newly conquered from the Swedish, at the mouth of the Neva River, in a inhospitable coastal area of the Gulf of Finland. Built by conscripted peasants from all over the Empire (but mainly Estonians and Finnish), whom joined russian soldiers, but also Swedish and Ottoman prisoners of war, and aimed at fulfilling the ambitions of Peter to transform Russia into a modern European country, Saint Petersburg became the capital of the Empire in 1712.

2634 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Saint Petersburg Mosque

When was opened in 1913, the Saint Petersburg Mosque was the largest mosque in Europe outside Turkey, its minarets 49 meters in height and the dome is 39 meters high. The founding stone was laid in 1910 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the reign of Abdul Ahat Khan in Bukhara. By that time, the Muslim community of the Russian then-capital exceeded 8,000 people. The architect Nikolai Vasilyev patterned the mosque after Gur-e Amir, the tomb of Tamerlane in Samarkand. Its construction was completed by 1921.

1419 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Palaces and Park Ensembles of the Town of Pushkin and its Historical Centre - part of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar's Village) was the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family, located 24km south from the center of Saint Petersburg, now part of the town of Pushkin. After the October Revolution, the town was renamed Detskoye Selo (Children's Village), and since 1937 Pushkin, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, who studied in the town's Lyceum from 1811 to 1817.

1218 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Palace Square - part of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

1218 Saint Petersburg - The Alexander Column in Palace Square

Palace Square (Dvortsovaya Ploshchad), connecting Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Bridge leading to Vasilievsky Island, is the central city square of St Petersburg. There many significant events took place, including the Bloody Sunday massacre and parts of the October Revolution of 1917. The earliest building on the square, the Baroque white-and-azure Winter Palace of the Russian tsars, gives the square its name. Although the adjacent buildings are designed in the Neoclassical style, they perfectly match the palace.

0423 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Scarlet Sails

The Scarlet Sails (Alye parusa in russian) is the most famous public event during the White Nights Festival, in Saint Petersburg, and takes place in June, on the end of school year. It is highly popular for its spectacular fireworks, numerous music concerts, and a massive water show including battles between dozens of boats full of pirates on the waters of the Neva river. The culmination of the Festival is the entry of two Brigantines with scarlet sails in the Neva River accompanied by music and fireworks.

0354 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Peter the Great Bridge

Peter the Great Bridge (named from 1917 to 1956 Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge, also known as Okhtinsky Bridge), designed by Krovoshein and Apishkov, is one of the 342 bridges in Saint Petersburg. It crosses the Neva River and has 334m length and 23m width, consisting of three spans, the central one, marked by four granite Norman towers, can be drawn (as shown in the picture) in only 30 seconds.

0290 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Peter and Paul Fortress - part of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

The Peter and Paul Cathedral, the oldest church in Saint Petersburg, and also the second-tallest building in the city (after the television tower), is located inside the Peter and Paul Fortress, founded by Peter the Great in 1703. As in the case of many other religious establishments of Russia, on the site of the cathedral there was first a wooden church, erected just one month after the city was officially founded and consecrated in 1704. The current stone cathedral was built between 1712 and 1733 on Zayachy Island (along the Neva River), by the same Domenico Trezzini, and marked a radical departure from traditional Orthodox churches, being built in early Baroque style.

0251 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Alexander Nevsky Monastery - part of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

The Saint Alexander Nevsky Lavra in Saint Petersburg is undoubtedly the most important between the numerous places of worship that have Alexander Nevsky as patron saint, because it was built by Peter the Great in the place where he believed that took place the Battle of the Neva in 1240, but especially because it hosts the relics of the saint. He was only 19 years when defeated the Swedes, and 21 when he defeated the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights, and became even during his lifetime a symbol of the Russians resistance against the invasions from the North. His veneration as a saint began soon after his death (in 1263, at the age of 43 years), he being canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1547.

0077 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Palace and Park Ensembles of the Town of Lomonosov and its Historical Centre - part of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

0077 Lomonosov - The Chinese Palace

 

Oranienbaum (orange tree in German of that era), named Lomonosov since 1948, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, 40km west of Saint Petersburg, and is the site of an 18th-century park and palace complex. In 1707, four years after he founded Saint Petersburg, Peter the Great gave the grounds near the seaside to his right-hand man, Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov, who commissioned the architects Giovanni Maria Fontana and Gottfried Schädel to built the Grand Menshikov Palace from 1710 to 1727.

0060 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Smolny Monastery - part of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

The Smolny Convent, or Smolny Convent of the Resurrection, is located on Ploschad Rastrelli, on the bank of the River Neva in Saint Petersburg. Built by beautiful and vivacious Elizabeth, favorite daughter of Peter the Great (from whom she inherited not only the strength of character, but also the leaning toward culture and art), it consists of a cathedral (sobor) and a complex of buildings, originally intended to be a convent. After she was disallowed to take the throne, Elizabeth opted instead to become a nun, but gave up this idea after she became empress in 1741.